I will acknowledge the implausibility of the whole scenario. ...she can take it off, too. We don't know if that'd make the effect go away but it might, it did for all the other ones -

If this were real, and not being under the oath really feels like- really feels like something unmistakable, enough that I might believe it - she'd have permission to come in and put it on and off while I was asleep.

You sure?

It probably comes off, all the other effects did. Best case, oath's gone and I have more reason to believe this is real. Worst case, my brain is twisted into a pretzel of affection either for her or for someone else who's going to be dead inside a century - hell, maybe the kids - and then I completely fall apart for all eternity, which doesn't look substantially worse than if I just keep on as I am - do you know if it takes away everything you feel for anyone else -

I can ask. 

She relays the whole exchange to Annie.

I didn't have a lot of close friends or a significant other back home but I feel what I am pretty sure is a normal-for-me amount of missing my parents.

Okay. Do you - do you want to -

Do you think I should.

Well, she said she'd want it. I can - ask her to break it down a little farther?

Might help.

Okay. 

Nelya - can you go, like, outcome-by-outcome, help me think this through - 

Sure. Outcome one, oath goes away and I'm not magic lovebonded and I concede that this is probably reality because the Enemy definitely uses this setup to fuck with me and if that part gets taken away and the oath is really gone and with the strategic picture sufficiently changed by Annie's world's technology I don't have much reason to expect this is a hallucination. 

Outcome two, option a, oath goes away and I'm magic lovebonded to Annie. As I understand it, this plausibly consists of my actual romantic relationships and feelings being either squashed out or adjusted into something nonromantic or just rendered irrelevant next to the new magic lovebond thing, and we are blissfully happy or something until she dies and then I'm basically never okay again for all eternity. This is pretty clearly not worth getting de-oathed for, and I wouldn't even believe I was free because the Enemy'd totally pull something like that and I don't know what he can and can't do, it's probably been a century of real time by now. 

Outcome two, option b, oath goes away and I'm magic lovebonded to someone who isn't Annie and isn't an option - straight, eight years old, married, whatever. Annie seems - functional, so maybe I would be until they died and then I'm back to never okay for all eternity.

Outcome two, option c, oath goes away and I'm magic lovebonded to someone who is an option and isn't going to be dead in sixty years and I put myself together and be adoring at them and I find the idea terrifying and repulsive but at least it wouldn't involve experiencing suffering forever. I'm so tired of suffering. I don't want to suffer forever. I'm so tired -

I know. Okay, so - two acceptable outcomes, two not-so-acceptable -

Yeah. So - what's probable? Might be that you have to be conscious to magic-love-bond, it happened to her when I entered her sensory range. Might be that I don't have a magic love bond, or that Elf souls override it, or that it happens but then Annie can take it off - and she would take it off, I trust her, she wants me to be okay, not to suffer forever - I am nearly certain it's going to happen but that's because I'm nearly certain this is a hallucination. If I thought this were reality I think I would conclude it was unlikely that putting on, then removing, the power resulted in magic-love-bonding the target.

Okay. So - might be an acceptable risk because if it works you know you're free of Angband and you think it's unlikely that instead it makes you suffer forever and you're going to kind of be suffering forever anyway if you never have any way to check if you're free of Angband?

Yeah. If I thought it'd be - even a ten percent chance - I wouldn't do it, but Annie hasn't had any trouble taking any magic off people yet, right, including this one, and you didn't have a magic love bond, and the trigger was the person entering her perceptive range, that doesn't add up to a likely picture. I'm terrified but if I thought this were real I'd say to do it.

...she conveys all this to Annie, as close as possible to verbatim.

Okay. Can you tell me when she's asleep.

To be safe she sings her to sleep, really really deep sleep, and then tells Annie when she's stopped. Song won't wear off for a minimum of twenty minutes.

And Annie goes in, and touches fingertip to fingertip, apply, remove -

- shivers, closes her eyes and bows her head, leaves.

You don't get feedback or anything, do you -

Not at all.

Okay.

And she sleeps peacefully, and wakes up -

- and Annie is the most important person in the universe and she's spent the last several years ignoring her and hurting her it's the most awful thing imaginable Annie might not even exist Annie is probably a figment of her imagination or of Thauron's and that does not change that Annie is the most important thing in the universe and she needs to be with her right now - 

Annie Annie where are you -